Quiller Barracuda

'Yes. But don't let it phase you. Bureau One is in charge and Croder is in Signals and I am directing you in the field. You can have, of course, any kind of support you need, without number. This', he said softly, 'is Classification One.'

I suppose I should've expected that, with Shepley and Croder running the board in London and Ferris out here with me in the field, but it came as a surprise and I was impressed because Classification One gives the shadow executive in the field total support and facilities – communications, courier lines, the strategic deployment of paramedical units and liaison with the local British embassy or consulate and diplomatic status in case of unavoidable transgression of the host country's laws.

Very few of the top shadows have been offered a C.1 – Thorne, Fosdyck, Barrett and I believe Tasman – because in any case a mission of this size doesn't often break.

'I don't want it,' I told Ferris, and finished the glass of water.

'Too posh for you.' Watching me carefully, 'Even with your degree of arrogance.'

No takers. 'Too bloody busy. Look, I haven't changed, Ferris, and you know I can only work if you bastards leave me alone.' No heat in the tone, but I wanted him to get the message.

'But if you do need help?'

'Then you'd better be there.'

'Well it's nice,' he said, 'to know we're of some comfort, even if you don't want to admit it.'

'Bullshit.'

He was trying to rile me but it wasn't just to amuse himself; the man he'd sent for to clear me for Barracuda could be here at any time and Ferris would need my signature straight away because if I turned this thing down he'd have to bring Meddick in from London to take over – if in fact they'd got that man standing by, which I somewhat doubted because they'll do this to you, you know that? They'll drag every nerve out of your body if it suits their book. I've seen them kick a man headlong into a mission with the absolute certainty that when he'd done the job he'd never get back through the frontier alive and then they'd pulled off the impossible and brought him in still ticking and debriefed him just in time before he went and walked under a bus.

The Bureau is the Sacred Bull and our heads, my friend, are never far from the sacrificial stone.

'So if I'm going in,' I told Ferris, 'I'm going in alone, and if I want help I'll ask for it.'

'Understood.'

Questions. 'What about Proctor? Are you going to put tags on him? Bugs in?'

He got his lean body off the bed and went into the bathroom and broke the plastic off the other glass and turned the tap on. 'I've got a thirst too. You're driving me too hard.' Joke. 'We put a tag on him yesterday and we're mounting a round-the-clock watch. And we put bugs in.'

I asked him: 'At what time?' And waited.

Watching me from the doorway, the glass of water in his hand. 'Just before you went there.'

'On whose orders?'

'London ordered it when -'

'I mean whose orders locally for Christ's sake, who told the man with the screwdriver?'

'I did.'

'And did you know what time I'd be there?'

'Yes. They -'

'You bugged my phone too?'

'I do wish you'd sit down. You'd be much more comfy.'

I had to centre to get the control back before I spoke.

'Not very good manners, was it?'

A sigh. One of his characteristic and calculated sighs. 'I really think this is a job for Meddick, you know. He'd be so much easier to handle.'

I moved around a bit and came back and sat on the floor with my back to the wall, slight smell of carpet and a shift in the acoustics: less traffic noise from the window. 'Fuck Meddick.'

'Now that'll make you feel better.'

'So you've got the whole of my meeting with Proctor on tape?'

'Yes.'

'And you don't, therefore, need to debrief me.'

'Except for the visuals, and the ambience.'

'He's in good shape, works out.' I went on talking normally to let the angst dissipate of its own accord. The only physical alternative for getting rid of the adrenalin would have been to hit Ferris and he'd saved my life too many times for me to touch him and in any case that too would have been bad manners. 'He started off all right but turned hostile. He -'

'Did you antagonise him?'

'No. I played him very carefully. He's lost some weight and he's living on his nerves – you'll pick that up in his voice too. Shabby flat, renting it furnished, air-conditioning not working – this was before the storm hit the power off. Very pretty black popsy who left without a word. He's -'

'Tart?'

'No, unless she's flying extremely high, Washington or somewhere like that. She's sophisticated, and potential dynamite. Raw silk dress, platinum Pinochet watch.'

'Yes, the tag reported on her. Did Proctor introduce her?'

'Yes, the name was Monique.'

Talking about her, thinking about her, brought the hint of patchouli back to me and by association something else that had been there in Proctor's flat, something I hadn't seen or heard, some kind of presence, an element, and it was this that had got my nerves strung up, and what I was afraid of most was a question about it from Ferris. He hadn't asked me yet and he might not ask me at all but if he didn't I'd know the worst.

Paranoia.

'Did you arrange to see him again?'

'What? Yes. We're meeting for lunch tomorrow at the Oyster Pick.'

'Despite his hostility.'

'He wants to know more.'

'About?'

The phone rang.

'Why I'm here. He suspects I'm checking on him.'

'Oh really.' He picked up the phone and listened and said, 'Come on up.'

He dropped the receiver back and I asked him where Monck fitted in.

'He's very seasoned,' Ferris said, 'and quite high in the overseas staff echelon, so if he contacts you, listen with care.'

'Is he directing anyone over here?'

'You mean plumbers and people?'

'Yes.'

'He is not. He's too far away and he is much too elevated to look after plumbers. Think of him as a liaison figure between Barracuda and the operations in Zurich and Cape Town and Hong Kong, and in direct signals of course with London – which is why you were sent to Nassau for local briefing.'

'Who's looking after the plumbers?'

Knock on the door and he went over there. By plumbers we mean engineers of some kind, mostly electronic and mostly concerned with bugs and counter-bugs. 'We've got a man called Parks who does that,' Ferris said, and opened the door.

I got off the carpet as he came in, a small man with quick movements, clerical, deferential, terrible tie.

'Truscott,' Ferris said, 'this is Mr Keyes. It shouldn't take long, I know it's late.'

We nodded and Truscott looked around for a chair and got his briefcase unzipped and then Ferris looked at me and said, 'Why do you think, by the way, that Judd should get in?'

Sudden chill and the skin crawling, the senses of reality drifting away.

And the faint scent of patchouli.

'Judd?' Quick. 'Oh, Proctor was full of it – you've got it on the tape.'

'Of course.' As if he'd forgotten.

He hadn't forgotten. 'Actually -' be careful, be very careful – 'anyway, it's all on the tape.'

Ferris had turned away and I said to the man, Truscott, 'You're here to clear me?'

'Yes.' He looked surprised. Well of course, Ferris would have told him but I suppose I was just making conversation while I waited for Ferris to turn round again – I wanted to see his eyes, see what was there. Sweat cold on the skin.

Then he was looking at me, and of course there wasn't anything at all I could see in his eyes because he wouldn't be showing it.